Exchange

The study of nearly 1,800 large axeheads made of Alpine jades has allowed us to identify their source areas in the Italian Alps and their diffusion over distances up to 1,700 km as the crow flies, above all in a north-westerly direction and towards the Atlantic. Moreover, a Europe-wide typological approach has revealed that the shape of these axeheads - at least as far as the examples made of the rarest and most beautiful rock type (jadeitite) are concerned - had in some cases been transformed several times over, in order to create original objects and hence to en-hance their value in exchanges.
We must, then, ask what was the social meaning of these ‘object-signs’ of jade, and what were the concepts which lay behind their circulation over distances which far exceeded those travelled by most other artefacts. The rarity and preciousness of the raw material is evidently implica-ted in these beliefs, as we can see from other jade objects, be they archaeological or ethnographic, which were used in central America, on the Antilles, in China and in New Zealand by markedly hierarchical societies with religious concepts that buttressed the power of the elites. Nor was the near-ubiquitous choice of the axe as an ‘object-sign’ in any way arbitrary ; rather, it was based on the general value of this tool used by farmers in a forest environment. The axe stood for certain social and politi-cal functions that were dominated by men, representing virility and violence. Likewise, the choice of jades was not random, since this precious stone, remarkably tough and luminous, often seems to have been associated with water, with lightning, with snakes and with eternity.
A fundamental observation to make is that the long polished axeheads of Alpine jade have most frequently been disco-vered in isolation - that is to say, outwith the archaeological context of a settlement or a grave. This absence of a conventional context must, however, be regarded as being of key significance in indicating the idealised value that had been accorded to these ‘object-signs’ of stone. Ancient and more recent discoveries of Alpine jade axeheads (and in-deed of axeheads made from flint or from other rocks from regionally-specificsources) have allowed us to state firmly that these objects had been deliberately deposited in the natural landscape, be it singly, in pairs, or occasionally in larger numbers. The findspot locations are often distinctive, with most axeheads being associated with water (in the form of lakes, ponds, bogs, rivers and waterfalls), and with some others being associated with free-standing blocks of stone, with rock overhangs or with fissures. The choice that is implied in these places of deposition evokes, unequivo-cally, certain sacred sites that are known from archaeology and ethnology : such sites are located at specific points in the landscape where communication with the supernatural Beings who control the fate of the living could take place. The representations of axes and axeheads that are engra-ved on the standing stones in the Morbihan lead us to the same conclusion.
If we accept this interpretation which invokes the domains of mythology, religion and social inequalities, then the spatial distribution of jade ‘object-signs’ in western Europe becomes easier to comprehend, as does the practice of polishing some axeheads made from the finest jadeitites to achieve a mirror-like sheen. Furthermore, the deliberate burning or breaking of some axeheads implies a sacrificial act, in which the objects were consecrated to Otherworldly powers ; the use of fire in this act of destruction echoes its use in the creation of some axeheads, through the use of fire-settingto extract the rock in the high Alps. Thus, the circulation of large Alpine axeheads was closely linked to a belief system that was based on the premise of their being a social inequality, in the func-tioning of the world, between men and the supernatural forces who possessed the ultimate power.
Given this context, it is therefore not surprising to find that the commonly-accepted terms ‘axehead for display’, ‘prestige axehead’ and ‘ceremonial axehead’ can neither explain nor account for the fact that these ‘object-signs’ of jade are virtually absent from settlement contexts (except at the beginning of their currency at the end of the 6th and at the end of their use during the first half of the 4th millennium BC). Similarly, the presence of jade axeheads in funerary contexts is rare : there are some modestly-sized polished Alpine axeheads in certain graves in the source area (North Italy, in the Square-Mouthed Pottery Culture), and some in male graves dating to a late phase in the use of Alpine rock (at the end of the 5th millennium and the first half of the 4th millennium).
The status of the individuals who were interred in the mas-sive mounds in the Carnac area of the Gulf of Morbihan, accompanied by numerous large Alpine axeheads and by other objects imported over long distances, is therefore all the more exceptional and demands to be explained. However, we should not make the common mistake of simply regarding these individuals as ‘Big Man’ chiefs, operating in a system based on conspicuous consumption ; such an interpretation ignores the religious basis of the socio-political organisation. The evidence encourages us to regard this society - which produced the earliest megalithic architecture in Europe around the middle of the 5th millennium, together with a whole repertoire of symbolic imagery (inclu-ding the axe), engraved on extraordinary standing stones- as one which was markedly inegalitarian, with some men having acquired an intermediary status between the elite and the supernatural powers. Such individuals would have been theocrats, ‘divine kings’, akin to those described by ethnographers for certain parts of Africa and Oceania, with the unstable ‘kingdom’ of Tonga being probably the clearest example. Despite the long distance (in time and space) between these societies and the ancient society of the Carnac region, the analogy seems justified.
Our proposed interpretation of the long-distance exchange of jade objects - above all towards north-west Europe - is thus based on our recognition of the idealised function of long axeheads within markedly inegalitarian societies, of which the most extreme version was located around the Gulf of Morbihan. In other words, the control of the exchange of these ‘object-signs’ which were destined to be consecrated or sacrificed would have been wholly in the hands of a small fraction of the elite. These few individuals would have acquired them not so much for making a direct statement of their privileged status within society, but rather to gain and reinforce their prestige, fame and religious power through offering the jade objects to the Otherworldly powers in order to ensure the (conceptual) reproduction of the world.

Ancient economies have been characterized by many researchers as localized, highly controlled by political actors, and static over long periods of time. In Mesoamerica, recent research has cast doubt on these views, with the recognition of early market place exchange, production by households for exchange, and the wide-ranging integration of communities into regional trade networks. Here, we expand onan earlier network analysis of obsidian assemblages from the Maya region during theClassic and Postclassic periods to incorporate data for all of Mesoamerica between 900BC and AD 1520. Using both visual graphical representations and formal network metrics, we find that the Mesoamerican economy was dynamic and generally not highly centralized over time. The topology of this interactive network underwent significant changes over time. In particular, trends towards decreasing network hierar-chy and size culminated in the highly commercialized “international” economy of LatePostclassic period as noted in previous studies. Based on this analysis, we make the case that the ancient Mesoamerican economy was neither predominantly top-down nor static, and so does not conform with oft-held presumptions regarding preindustrialeconomies.